


Close For Comfort

by Amberstarry



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Comfort, M/M, Night, Nightmares, bed, bunks, intruder, sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-29
Updated: 2015-09-29
Packaged: 2018-04-23 23:51:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4897036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Amberstarry/pseuds/Amberstarry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's an intruder who's crawled into Lister's bed while he was sleeping, giving him a him a hell of a fright. Who it turns out to be, however, is the most disturbing part of all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Close For Comfort

**Author's Note:**

> Wooo, first RD fanfic on A03! God, I haven't written any RD fafic in a long time but I felt like some was due. 
> 
> Enjoy, Dwarfers!
> 
> Amber***

A shiver ran through his body, moving all the way down to his toes and waking him from a deep slumber. His eyes fluttered open, forcing him to begrudgingly take in his surroundings - trying to find the source of his disturbance and unhappy with being so prematurely reacquainted with consciousness. The sleeping quarters were dark but his pupils quickly adjusted and he was soon able to make out the shadows of furnishings scattered around the room. So far as it seemed everything was in order, exactly the way he remembered it being the last time he had laid eyes upon it - his guitar was on the table next to his ashtray which was brimming with cigarette butts, his socks were piled higgledy-piggledy across the floor, Rimmer’s timetable was half-hanging off the wall, Lennon and McCartney were sprawled on the couch awaiting repairs, his favourite London Jets t-shirt was hanging on the back of the chair and a half-empty container of chicken vindaloo was balancing precariously on the edge of the sink. 

He blinked a few times, wondering if he had missed something, but upon doing a second scope found he had indeed missed nothing at all. He lay there a few minutes as his brain came back to full function. It wasn’t until he heard a snuffle near his ear which made him literally fall from his bunk in fright that he knew what had woken him. Clambering to his feet, he held his up his arms in a defensive pose and shouted “LIGHTS!” so he could clearly see the intruder he was dealing with. 

The sleeping quarters lights flicked on, shrouding the room in a fluorescent hue. The person in Lister’s bunk groaned. Their brown mop of curls and the slip of pale skin of their hand that Lister could just see poking out from the blanket looked familiar, but he was sure his mind was just playing tricks on him. He waited patiently for the intruder to lift their head and reveal themselves. Whoever it was was going to get an ass-kicking they were never going to forget. Nobody snuck into Dave Lister’s bed and started spooning him without his permission. Well, except Kochanski anyway. 

“What’s all the racket?” The intruder asked, reaching their hand up and brushing their hair out of their face. They rubbed their eyes and slowly began lifting their head to look out at the room. 

Lister’s jaw dropped when the mop of hair turned up to reveal Rimmer’s tired, confused face. The second technician gazed at Lister squinting, trying to shield his eyes from the obnoxious light. “Lister?”

“What are you doing in me bed, Rimmer?” Lister demanded, dropping his defensive pose in favour of an angry one. 

Rimmer looked at him confusedly. “Your bed?” He turned and looked at the bunk, surveying it thoroughly. His eyes landed on Lister’s photos, and the postcard of Fiji that he had blue-tacked to the bunk wall. His expression turned to one of terror and he sat up so fast the blanket went flying off his torso, revealing the top of his baby blue ship-issue pyjamas. “Your bed! What am I doing in your bed?!” 

“That’s what I want to know!” Lister exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “Don’t act like you don’t know, you’re the one who crawled in and started spoonin’ me in the middle of the night. There’s gotta be a reason you did it, ya freaky bastard.” 

“SPOONING YOU? EUGH!” Rimmer threw off the blanket, flipped his legs over the edge of the bunk and climbed down the ladder. “I can hardly stand the sight of you, let alone be any closer to you than a foot. If I spooned you I think the strength of your stench would make me throw up all over myself.” He turned around to look at Lister with a harsh grimace. 

Lister shook his head. “How do you explain being in me bed then?” 

Rimmer shrugged. “I don’t know! Maybe I accidentally thought your bunk was mine!” 

“My bunk is up the top! You literally have to climb up the ladder to get into it! Plus I was already in there!” Lister walked forward and poked Rimmer in the chest. “Why! Were! You! In! My! Bed!” 

Rimmer poked Lister right back. “I! Don’t! Know!” Suddenly the second technician looked away from Lister to the screen on the wall. “Holly!” 

Holly’s bewildered face flashed onto the screen, her blonde locks ruffled and her nightcap askew from simulated sleep. “Wha’d you want at this time of night?” She asked, following her question with a loud yawn. 

“Play the security footage of the sleeping quarters from just after we went to sleep,” Rimmer commanded, staring at the computer pointedly. 

Holly blinked a few times and raised an eyebrow. “Why?” 

Rimmer shook his head and waved at her dismissively. “Just do it!” 

Holly rolled her eyes. “Ungrateful git.” Her face disappeared and was replaced with a recording of the sleeping quarters. Lister and Rimmer were both visible, sleeping soundly in their bunks under the nightvision. Lister’s arm and leg were hanging of the edge of his bunk, his blanket only covering a portion of his body and he was snoring loudly. Below him, Rimmer was curled up in a ball underneath his blanket. It was hard to see much of him, and he wasn’t snoring, but he was making a sound. 

The two technicians leaned in closer to the monitor to try and hear the sound Rimmer was making on the recording clearer. It was hard to make out since Lister’s snores drowned most of it out, but Lister was just able to make out what it sounded like. “Were you - were you whimperin’ in your sleep?” He asked Rimmer, turning to face him. 

Rimmer’s face was a bright pink and he shook his head adamantly. “No! I most certainly was not!”  
“Oh yes you were!” Lister teased, a grin spreading across his face. 

“Shut up!” Rimmer shouted, turning back to the screen. What he saw when he did made his blush drain away faster than water down the sink. 

On the recording you could clearly see Rimmer slowly climbing out of bed. He had a scared expression on his face and he kept making pained noises as he left the comfort of his own bunk. In what seemed like an event that could only occur in the movies, Rimmer then walked over to the ladder and began to climb up to Lister’s bunk. As he climbed you could see he was shaking, and his eyes were still closed so he definitely wasn’t alert which explained why he currently didn’t remember any of this. It took an agonizingly long time for Rimmer to climb up to the top, but once he did he gingerly stepped over Lister’s slumbering body and nestled in behind him in his sleep-walking state. As he laid down and snuggled in closer to Lister, his shivers visibly subsided and by this point Lister’s snoring had died down enough that the Dwarfers were able to clearly hear Rimmer stop whimpering. He fell into a calm sleep and didn’t move again. Once he had calmed however, Lister’s eyes opened and within a few seconds he was tumbling out of his bunk in fright. The recording stopped there and Holly’s face reappeared on the screen.

“There, can I go back to sleep now?” She asked crankily. 

Lister’s eyes were wide and he nodded wordlessly in response. Holly disappeared again, leaving a black screen in her wake. Lister turned to Rimmer who was rigid, his lips pursed in embarrassment. “Don’t say anything,” he cautioned, aware by the look on Lister’s face that nothing good was going to come from what he was about to say. 

“Were you having nightmares?” Lister asked gently, not sure how to go about this. 

Rimmer looked down at the ground and began shuffling his bare feet over the corrugated iron floor. “I was just dreaming about my brothers from what I can recall…” 

“And you were whimperin’ because of it? What did they do to yeh?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.” 

Lister looked back over at the now black screen. “So that’s why you climbed into bed with me. It makes you feel better.” 

“Don’t get too cocky Lister, I was unconscious I probably didn’t even think it was you, I probably dreamt I was getting in bed with my mother.” Rimmer snapped his head up. “Whatever, it doesn’t matter I’m going back to bed.” 

Lister watched as Rimmer climbed back into his bottom bunk and turned his body so he was facing the wall away from Lister. The third technician wanted to do or say something but he wasn’t sure what, and it was late at night, probably the wee hours of the morning, and sleeping on it did seem like the easiest thing. So he too jumped back into his bunk and settled back into sleep. 

In the morning Lister opened his eyes to see the time-of-day-indicator glowing a bright yellow, signifying the sun would be up at this time if he was on Earth. He blinked a few times to get his bearings and yawned, stretching his arms out. He froze when he heard a snuffle behind his ear and slowly turned his head back to see Rimmer once again snuggled up against him. He dropped his arms and watched the hologram sleep. Truth be told, he didn’t think he had ever seen Rimmer sleep so peacefully. He was always talking and fidgeting in his sleep, but as he lay next to Lister he made no noise, his breathing was even and he was still as anything. The third technician didn’t have the heart to wake him, so instead he turned back around and closed his eyes again, thinking about the very faint warmth coming from Rimmers lightbee buzzing around behind his back.


End file.
